When you’re traveling and need to find propane, dump stations, RV parks, or boondocking locations, the iOverlander app can help simplify the process. This popular app has become a guide for many travelers (including us) and is helpful for more than just finding great boondocking sites.
In this post, we’ll tell you how iOverlander can be a great travel companion not only for overlanders but for all RVers and campers. Let’s take a look at the iOverlander camping app and all it has to offer.
What Is Overlanding?
Before we get into the nitty gritty about the iOverlander app, we want to briefly introduce the concept of overlanding. We frequently talk about boondocking, which has been our favorite to camp for more than 20 years, but overlanding is different.
Sometimes referred to as dispersed camping, wild camping, or off-grid camping, boondocking means camping in areas away from established campgrounds. That means no access to things like electricity, water & sewer hookups, or designated campsites. Many RVers, ourselves included, seek out remote or undeveloped areas for our boondocking experiences. We prefer secluded camping in places of dramatic natural beauty — true off-grid RV boondocking.
We love boondocking in out-of-the-way places whether we’re in the forest, in the middle of the desert, or beside a beautiful lake or stream.
Overlanding is similar to boondocking in many ways, but it’s often focused on traveling long distances over rugged terrain or into deeply remote areas. It often involves specially-equipped vehicles (such as heavy-duty 4×4 trucks, SUVs, or lifted camper vans). It can also involve traveling for an extended period, sometimes spanning weeks or even months.
Overlanding is often more about the journey itself, rather than reaching a specific destination quickly. For much more information on this way of traveling and camping, see our post entitled, “What Is Overlanding & How Is It Different From Boondocking?”
What Is the iOverlander App?
iOverlander is a site and set of apps created by overlanders for overlanders and was long run almost entirely by volunteers – a true community effort. It started as a mapping project created to help fellow overlanders find the next location on their journey, allowing anyone to add destinations to the map and donate time or money to help keep the project going. They could also add opinions/reviews about places they encountered in their travels and share those thoughts with other overlanders via the site/app.
Over time, it has evolved into a tool that benefits all types of travelers and campers. It’s a guide to finding anything from dump stations to water stations to propane to free campsites (and much more), showing locations in Africa, Europe, North America, and elsewhere. You can view locations via a map or a list, and get information on GPS coordinates, amenities, and more. iOverlander is accessible online at their website or via their iOS and Android apps.
The iOverlander app and website give you information about locations you might be interested in visiting, areas you might be traveling through, and what’s available in each location. Information can also be found on dump stations, propane stations, hotels, and much more.
So, iOverlander is a tool that enables its users to submit, amend, and find information and opinions/reviews about places that are essential for overlanding and camping in general. iOverlander 2, recently released as we write this post, will be offered free and as a paid subscription, and volunteers will become paid employees. These developments, of course, are due to the increasing popularity of iOverlander.
What Can I Find With iOverlander?
iOverlander includes camping, hotels, restaurants, mechanics, water, propane filling stations, and much more. Details are listed for each location/service, including amenities, photos, the date the reporter last visited, as well as the GPS coordinates.
Registered users can create a spot they’ve discovered by clicking “Add New Place Here” and following the instructions to create a new post. Users can share specific information about the spot including whether it’s pet-friendly, has showers (with or without a fee), has WiFi, power, restrooms, and water, and whether or not a 4×4 is needed to access the location. Users can even post photos.
It can take anywhere from one day to a couple of weeks for the new spot to be created and available on the website or in the apps. But once it’s available, it can be viewed by others so that they can see what the spot is like before traveling there.
Some users include photos so fellow campers can have a visual understanding of an area/service prior to traveling to the location.
Another great feature of iOverlander is user comments. Comments are sorted by those most recently shared, giving you the most up-to-date understanding of the area. For instance, commenters will let you know if they reached a spot and found a “no campers allowed” sign so you don’t waste your time, gas, and energy traveling there.
They’ll also let you know if they found an awesome site with a great fire pit, cell service (down to how many bars they have from their particular cell provider), water, etc. As you might imagine, user comments are generally very helpful to other travelers as they offer a real-world, crowd-sourced perspective on each location, with photos sometimes included.
Pro Tip: No matter what type of rig you have, we strongly recommend that you pay very close attention to limitations on vehicle size and whether or not 4-wheel drive is needed or recommended in certain areas. iOverlander app users are taking the time to inform other travelers of important information regarding an area and it’s a good idea to take that information seriously so you don’t get stuck or have a bad experience.
What Is iOverlander 2?
The creators of iOverlander recently launched a new app (available on the App Store and Google Play Store) known as iOverlander 2. This app is entirely rebuilt on a whole new platform so that it functions far better than the original. It also offers features that users have been requesting for many years such as the ability to search, translations, garages, map routing, and cell phone signal strength.
The iOverlander2 app is still free (with ads), but there’s an optional paid subscription that turns off ads, allows you to download more points/spots/areas at one time, and gives you the ability to download offline maps (a feature not previously available). All of the other old features as well as the new ones are still free.
The iOverlander 2 app is available for both Apple (iOS) and Android devices.
iOverlander2 was created to upgrade the technology and to hire employees to do what there simply weren’t enough volunteers to handle. They also need to pay fees for hosting, software, and developers to maintain the app. Also, the old app will one day become obsolete and will be impossible to maintain. But until that day, the old app and online site can still be used by those who prefer it.
iOverlander no longer requests donations on their website as a result of these developments, but anyone who has already donated $50 or more will be given a free subscription to the new iOverlander app.
You can find the iOverlander 2 Android App here, and the iOverlander 2 iOS App here.
For more great tips on trip planning see these three posts:
- Our Top 5 RV Trip Planner Apps for Easy RV Travel
- The AllStays Camp & RV App Makes RV & Camping Trips Easier
- The RV LIFE App: Trip Planning, RV-Safe GPS & More (+ Discount!)
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Stan
Friday 28th of June 2024
We used iOverlander to locate "purificadoras," purified water sellers, on a recent trip down Baja. In the past, campers have had to rely on bottled water instead of being able to fill their tanks. We were able to refill our 100 gallon tank with reverse osmosis UV sterilized water for next to nothing, and use our domestic system as usual. Well worth it!